Flying Queen Linda Pickens in action during a Wayland Baptist University basketball game.

Flying Queen Linda Pickens in action during a Wayland Baptist University basketball game.

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Former basketball player gives back to university, Queens

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Former Wayland Baptist Flying Queen Linda Pickens Price once considered Wayland her home away from home. Now, thanks to Price’s generous donation, future Flying Queen basketball players will get a head start on enjoying that very same feeling - even in their locker room.

Price, who starred for the Flying Queens from 1966-69, targeted her donation to renovate the team’s locker room. The transformation included adding a player lounge where, according to head coach Tory Bryant, they can relax before and after practices and games. Decorated with photos of former Queens players and teams, the lounge features leather furniture, hardwood flooring, crown molding and even a gaming system on a 51-inch flat-screen TV.

Other improvements in the locker area include motivational signage, a marble top double-vanity and a 102-inch projection screen that will be utilized for watching game film. A keyless entry system will allow players access to their locker room with the swipe of their student ID card.

“Having a recruiting tool like this can really help us,” Bryant said. “We are so thankful for what she has done for the program and future of the program.”

The renovation work started last summer and is still ongoing, but it should be complete in time for a Flying Queens reunion on Friday and Saturday when approximately 60 former players - including Price - will be on campus. Special recognition will be given not only to her but also to about a dozen members of Flying Queens teams from 1953-58 who compiled a still-standing national record winning streak of 131 consecutive games. Those teams, coached first by Caddy Matthews and later by Harley Redin, will be honored as just the fourth “Trailblazers of the Game” by the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame next June in Knoxville, Tenn.

This week’s reunion will include an event, open to the public, at 10:30 a.m. Friday in Hutcherson Center. The 30-minute program will feature remarks from Wayland officials and former players as well a medallion presentation to the dozen Trailblazers.

“We invite everyone to join us for this special occasion,” Wayland Athletics Director Dr. Greg Feris said. “These women represent a major part of the storied history of women’s basketball.”

The former Flying Queens will attend the current team’s practice Friday afternoon followed by a reception and locker room dedication honoring Price. On Saturday morning, the former players will gather for a tour of the Laney Center on campus and then meet for a reception hosted by Harley and Wilda Redin.

The reunion also will serve as a springboard for the recently-formed Hutcherson Flying Queens Foundation.

“The goal of the foundation is to connect the alumni, coaches and supporters with each other and with current Flying Queens,” according to Betty Courtney Donaldson, who played for the team in the mid-1960s and later served as a vice-president at the university.

A writer from Texas Monthly will be on campus to gather information for a future article in the magazine, and a film crew also will be on hand for a documentary on the Flying Queens.

Price can hardly wait for the reunion.

“I’m excited,” she said.

Price’s anticipation stems from being able to give back to a university and its women’s basketball program that meant so much to her as a young woman back in the 1960s as well as throughout her professional life as a successful healthcare executive and academic administrator.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to be fairly successful, and if I hadn’t had that (education) there’s no doubt in my mind it wouldn’t have happened,” she said. “I’ve always been thankful and I felt a need to repay it somehow.”

Price grew up in the small rural community of Davis in south-central Oklahoma. One of six children, she said she didn’t consider her family poor, even though they didn’t have indoor plumbing until she was 8 or 9 years old.

“I remember reading by kerosene lamps,” she said.

She also remembers playing basketball at a young age.

“A blacksmith made a hoop for me and my older brother tacked it up on a tree. That’s where I learned to shoot,” she said.

Her brother Bobby and an older sister ElRay’s husband, Charles Anderson, who was a basketball player and referee, helped Price hone her game.

“I played against them as a little kid. That really helped me.”

About that same time, Price first caught wind about the Hutcherson Flying Queens and Wayland Baptist University.

“I was 6 or 7 years old when I heard about the Flying Queens. That was when they had that (131-game) winning streak. Word had gotten around Oklahoma about this team in Plainview.”

She said her brother and brother-in-law encouraged her to continue playing basketball.

“They said, ‘You could be a Flying Queen,’ so I established that as a dream. We didn’t have a lot of money, so I knew I had to get a scholarship to go to school. That was my goal.”

In addition to being class valedictorian, Price became a standout basketball player at Woodland High School, twice leading her team to the state finals and winning a championship in 1965. She was a two-time all-state player and for many years held the state record for most points scored in a single game and most points scored in the state tournament.

After playing in an all-star game in Oklahoma, Price said she was approached by Redin about playing for the Flying Queens.

“He came down after the game and said, ‘Linda, I think you can play for Wayland. I was awestruck.”

But Redin cautioned Price that she may not be ready for the varsity team right away and figured she would start out on the freshman team.

“I told him I wanted to play on the Flying Queens, not the Queen Bees,” she recalled with a laugh.

The coach - now a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame - also thought Price would have to change positions because, at 5-foot-8, he felt she was too short to be a center in the college game. Price, though, was determined not only to make the varsity roster but to continue playing center.

She did both.

“I had a hook shot that I had practiced all those years against my brother and brother-in-law,” she said. “I could get my hook shot over them, and in my mind there was no way I couldn’t play center.”

Price said she also was offered a scholarship to play basketball at Ouachita Baptist in Arkansas.

“They assured me I would start and play center, but I was so determined I was going to play for the Queens,” she recalled. “By golly, it happened.”

Just a couple of games into her freshman year, Price got the chance to prove herself.

“Coach Redin decided to take me on the traveling team to Kansas City to play the Raytown Piperettes, which was a really good, basically semi-pro team with much older women. We played in a really, really small gym, which they did because of their size. We were a running team and they were not as quick as us.”

The Piperettes also preferred a man-to-man defense, which played right into Price’s strength.

“That was my game. I could take a step out and get that hook shot off,” at which she was proficient with either her right or left hand.

When Price finally got her chance, she took full advantage.

“Coach Redin put me out there and I started scoring,” she said. “From that point on, I started.”

Price was chosen by her team as a co-captain her sophomore year when she earned honorable mention AAU all-American honors. The following year she was one of just 12 women in the country to earn AAU All-American honors plus was named an Outstanding Athlete of America.

In December 1968 she married Ben Price, an attorney from Lone Grove, Okla. That gained Price the distinction of becoming the first married female athlete at Wayland to be allowed to continue playing a college sport.

Because she was determined to finish her degree early, Pickens played just three seasons with the Flying Queens, missing her senior year after graduating cum laude with a major in psychology and minors in English and sociology. Still, after leading the team in scoring two seasons and with a field goal percentage that exceeded 50 percent, she wound up her career seventh on the team’s all-time scoring list with 943 points.

Her other honors at Wayland included being named by the Wayland faculty as Outstanding Female Freshman and becoming a member of Alpha Chi. She was elected student government senator two years, president of Owen Hall and held memberships in Psi Lambda and Athletes for Christ.

“Wayland gave me a sound education, enough to allow me to go to Tulane and do well there and get my master’s,” she said, recalling Dr. Mary Bublis serving as head of Wayland’s psychology department. “That’s what got me interested in my life’s work.”

After completing a master of social work degree at Tulane in 1973, Price began her career in the human services field, focusing on children with special needs and becoming an advocate for improvements needed in mental health. She has lobbied on the state and national levels and is recognized as an expert clinician in the psychiatric field, having held numerous executive positions including chief administrator of the Harris County Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston. As such, she directed the operation of a 250-bed psychiatric hospital and was responsible for a $30 million budget, which encompassed a staff of 600, plus physicians, residents and more than 500 students.

Since 1993, Price has served as the owner and CEO of Pickens-Price Enterprises, Inc., a consulting company that specializes in the evaluation and improvement of business offices in healthcare and academic institutions. In addition, she served as chair and board president of the Questa Youth Ranch, a not-for-profit therapeutic ranch for troubled youth.

Additionally, she has authored numerous publications dealing with the mentally ill and has been referenced as one of the Most Powerful Women in Houston by Houston City Magazine.

Price, who lives with her husband of 43 years in Huffman outside of Houston, twice has been honored by Wayland in recent years, first with the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004 and then with her induction into the Athletic Hall of Honor in 2010.

“Wayland’s been good to me,” she said.

Price said she’s been fortunate to enjoy a successful career, and feels it wouldn’t have been possible without the help she received from Wayland and the Flying Queen program.

“With my basketball scholarship and academic scholarship I was able to go to college. That just wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for Wayland,” she said. “That was the reason I gave this gift. I want to repay it. (Wayland) meant a lot to me. It gave me my start.”